Fire in Peru drug rehabilitation clinic kills 14
Relatives of patients of the Christ is Love rehabilitation center for drug and alcohol addicts in Lima comfort each other after a deadly blaze on January 28, 2012.
Fourteen people died today after a fire swept through a drug rehabilitation center in Peru, Agence France-Presse reported.
According to the BBC, only one person survived the deadly blaze at the Sacred Heart of Jesus center located near the capital Lima.
A video posted on peru21.pe shows a number of firefighters outside a blackened two-storey building. Reports said 13 bodies were found on the second floor and one on the first floor.
AFP quoted Fernando Campos, the head of the firefighting unit on the scene, as saying the patients had been locked inside the building when the fire started in the early hours of Saturday.
"The doors were locked and the windows on the second floor had bars on them. It wasn't possible for people to get out," Campos said.
The BBC, citing local media reports, said a patient receiving treatment at the center had set fire to a mattress on the second floor.
It was the second such tragedy in Peru this year.
In January, an inferno at another drug clinic killed nearly 30 people.
Peru is the world’s second largest producer of coca bush, which is used to make cocaine, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. In 2010, Peru had a total of 61,200 hectares (over 150,000 acres) dedicated to growing coca, just 800 behind Colombia.
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